


Birdcage

by afagley



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Slice of Life, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:21:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afagley/pseuds/afagley
Summary: It's 3am and Dee and Charlie are sitting in his bedroom window, sharing a cigarette.





	Birdcage

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything substantial in months, so here's a little number I whipped up on my phone instead while watching the Eagles game. Sunny has kind of just been my life recently, so I figured why not try my hand at this. It's more or less just a scene rather than a plot-driven story. I wanted to play around with the characters, and I've been into the idea of high school AUs so here we are!

She was a canary trapped in a birdcage, looking out the window, longing to fly. Her leg dangled over the ledge of the second-story back window of the Philadelphia row home. Occasionally, her wrist flicked just enough to get rid of the pooling ashes at the end of her cigarette.  
  
Inhale, exhale; pass.  
  
"So, uh... Why -- why are you here again?" He was confused, sure, but he didn't completely mind her company. He leaned over her bent knee and took a drag of the cigarette, looking up at her from the way he leaned over her lap.  
  
She just made a face. He only knew personal boundaries when it came to him not wanting to be touched. She let her leg drop on the inside of the window. He fell enough to almost push her out.  
  
"God dammit, Charlie!"  
  
Her hand caught a tuft of his hair to keep herself steady, while her other hand gripped at the open window as if she was strong enough to hold up her body weight had she actually fallen out. He almost shoved her out purposefully in reflex of his hair being pulled, but she let go as soon as she secured her balance and wiped her greasy hand on the back of his shirt.  
  
"Christ, when was the last time you showered?"  
  
"Uh, I dunno. Last week?" He itched his head, where her hand was, as if it was reflexive to her comment. As if part of him knew that maybe he should have showered more regularly, but really he didn't care enough to bother.  
  
She always smelled nice. Sometimes the places of the room she touched that didn't smell like cigarette smoke smelled like the perfume she wore. She would tell him that she didn't even wear perfume, that it was just soap, but he wasn't so sure she was telling the truth. The last time he was in her room, which hadn't been for a while -- he only went when Ronnie wanted to hang out with Dee's brother and felt bad for leaving Charlie out of things -- he noticed everything smelled nice; smelled like Dee.  Everything a person owned couldn't just smell like that because of soap.  
  
"Dee?"  
  
"What?" She snapped, though her expression wasn't as harsh as her voice.  
  
"It's, like, it's 3 in the morning. Why are you _here_ ?"  
  
She looked back out the window. Cars could be heard from the street adjacent, zooming too quickly for the small Philly side streets, and there was a faint commotion from each side of the block where the bars were open passed when they were supposed to close, but otherwise it was quiet.  
  
"Do you want me to go, huh? Is that what you want?" She was defensive because it was the one mode she could be sure of. People were always shitting on her, but no one could say she took it quietly.  
  
"No! What? No" He admitted, straightening up a bit to lean against the other side of the open window to get a better look at her. She looked kind of tiny beneath her back brace. Even if she towered over him, she was really small. She looked even smaller there in his window. He passed her back the cigarette. "I'm just askin'. Is it a _crime_ now to ask questions?  I mean, you are in my house."

Dee just shrugged and took another drag of the cigarette before tossing it out into his backyard, which wasn’t much more than a few blocks of concrete.  His house was kind of dingy compared to hers, but he was true blue South Philly.  She liked the city, even if she wanted to move away to New York after college to pursue her acting career.

"So… You need help getting out of this thing or what?" He asked as he flicked her metal brace.  
  
Dee didn't need help. She was used to doing it on her own at this point. Sometimes Dennis would pretend to be nice and insist on doing it when he needed something from her, but mostly Dee did everything for herself. She was hard because of it. Her dad may have been a piece of work, but he taught her to take no shit.  
  
"Sure, Charlie."  
  
She shoved him back a bit so that she could climb back in the window, so that both her feet planted firmly on the carpet of his room; a cleared space not cluttered by dirty clothes and old toys and half-empty glue containers. She talked him through the process of undoing her brace. It was faster with the two of them.  
  
"Hey, you're not a monster."  
  
It was supposed to be endearing, probably, but was greeted by a scowl and a, "No shit, dickbrain."  
  
The insult rolled off him like he was doused in negativity retardant.  They were made of the same stuff. "How long you gotta wear that thing anyway? Can I, like, can I try it on?" He asked as he set down the aluminium cage. Not a monster but a prisoner.

“Are you for real right now?”

“What?” He gave her that stupid smile, the one that usually gave away that he was high.  He had probably been huffing glue before she arrived.

She merely snorted and picked up one of his shirts from the floor, sniffing it.  It was alright.  “Turn around, boner, so I can get changed.”

“Oh, so you’re staying here?  Cool.  Cool.  Okay, so, uhh --”

Charlie turned around and covered his eyes, though he couldn’t help but glance around too soon to catch a glimpse.  Sure, she was _Dee_ , but she was still a mostly naked girl in his bedroom and he was a teenaged boy.  She really did look like a bird, though, which was cool.  Charlie loved birds  
  
Dennis would probably kill him if he knew Charlie was thinking about his sister like that. But it wasn’t like Dennis was going to find out.

“Alright, let’s get some shut eye.” Dee pulled back the covers of his bed.  She didn’t look so small in his shirt, in his bed, as she did in her cage on the window sill. "Your mom's not gonna get all weird if she comes in here and sees me in your bed, is she?"  
  
"Yeah, probably, but it's -- it's whatever."  
  
He turned the light off before going to climb in bed with her.  He hadn't actually slept in a bed with a girl before.  Sometimes, when Ronnie slept over, they would sleep in the same bed, but that was different.  This was _Dee_. She shifted closer and pressed her face into Charlie's shoulder and sighed. He smelled like cheese and Ronnie the Rat's body spray and faint body odor all at once, but something about it was oddly comforting. She smelled like her perfume, just like Charlie suspected.

"Hey, Dee?"

"What, Charlie?" There wasn't the snap to her voice this time.  It was quiet, as if the darkness was an indicator that it was time to whisper; as if cuddling somehow made any of this normal.

"How come you came here?"

She was quiet for a while. He thought that maybe she had fallen asleep in an attempt to ignore him; he started to fall asleep just waiting.  "I don't know, you know?  I guess... When I'm here I don't feel like I'm _trapped_." Nothing about her tone was vulnerable, just honest.

"Like a bird in a cage."

She groaned.  "Yeah, like a bird in a cage."

He laughed, not feeling so weird about sharing his bed with her now.  She laughed too, mostly because it was nearing four in the morning and things just stopped making sense passed three to begin with.  But this all made sense to Charlie.  For some reason, with him, she felt free.


End file.
